Guild Wars 2

Scenario 1 – raids are truly difficult, a dedicated healer is needed. That would be a druid. So if that’s the case every one will need a druid, raids will be sitting in lfg needing a druid. Thus creating the issue anet stated this game would never have of needing a dedicated healer or tank to do things thus no queues.

Scenario 2 – druid isn’t needed. A full dps team or team with minimal valkyrie or knights armor can still beat the raids making druid 100% useless and simply not needed.

Is there a scenario 3 I’m missing? I just see this game slowly trying to turn into an mmo that’s been dying over the years and using the old mechanics of old mmos. I feel like guild wars 2 doesn’t want to be guild wars 2 anymore.

Alright, I’ve been seeing this comment come up a lot when concerning the Druid. People have a fit thinking that they will have to wait hours for a Druid on lfg. My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account. If we are assuming raids are truly difficult content, then I believe it is safe to assume that many of the players interested in the content will have an 80 for every profession. If your group needs a Druid, someone can simply switch.

Raids are being created so you do NOT need to wait for a certain class to get online they want you to be able to play the content without much waiting.

If it becomes clear that a Druid has become the “must have” class for raids, then I think it’s likely that they’ll go back and up the healing power of some other classes/specs. None of them may be as heal-heavy as the Druid, but having a couple of them around will replace the need for one.

I think people are sorely underestimating how much healing many core professions can throw down right now. It’s not that the builds don’t exist, its that there’s ZERO need for them. Create a demand and those builds will come out of mothballs right quick.

Even now I’d take a prepared Elementalist over Druid because you KNOW there’s gonna be phases where the heal pressure backs off and you need MAXIMUM BURN. Ele swaps attunement and lays it on. Druid… relaxes a little?

Scenario 1 won’t happen. At least that’s what anet said.

Nike.2631:

I think people are sorely underestimating how much healing many core professions can throw down right now. It’s not that the builds don’t exist, its that there’s ZERO need for them. Create a demand and those builds will come out of mothballs right quick.

Even now I’d take a prepared Elementalist over Druid because you KNOW there’s gonna be phases where the heal pressure backs off and you need MAXIMUM BURN. Ele swaps attunement and lays it on. Druid… relaxes a little?

Nah druid weaponswap to utilise its to just say a example marksman/skrimishing lines it have equiped for kicks

Scenario 3 is that the content will be difficult that you’ll need a lot of healing to complete them but won’t necessarily need a DEDICATED healer if everyone else would be willing to spec into a hybrid damage/heal role and cover one another.

Which means it might be optimal to role with a dedicated healer so that the rest of the party can focus solely on damage, but it won’t be required to do the content if everyone is willing to make the damage sacrifice by bringing a few pieces of Clerics gear along.

Even then the druid isn’t a true dedicated healer. It’s a hybrid that can be built for heavy healing, but still deals damage with standard attacks. Just like every other support build in the game druid will be doing DPS and control when healing isn’t necessary.

Paulash.5814:

My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account.

How many players who currently have a level 80 ranger on their account have created that character to play as a dedicated healer?

Zero.

What makes you think that people who made a character to NOT play as a dedicated healer will be willing to just turn around and play as a dedicated healer?

If anything, the situation will likely become worse than it’s right now for rangers. Instead of being not very sought but being begrudgingly accepted in groups (unlike necromancers, who are simply not accepted), rangers will only be accepted if they agree to use a healing build, and will be kicked otherwise.

Even worse, we will likely see the return of the “OMG I died because that n00b didn’t heal me!” phenomen. And rangers will get the blame.

Test.8734:

Paulash.5814:

My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account.

How many players who currently have a level 80 ranger on their account have created that character to play as a dedicated healer?

Zero.

What makes you think that people who made a character to NOT play as a dedicated healer will be willing to just turn around and play as a dedicated healer?

If anything, the situation will likely become worse than it’s right now for rangers. Instead of being not very sought but being begrudgingly accepted in groups (unlike necromancers, who are simply not accepted), rangers will only be accepted if they agree to use a healing build, and will be kicked otherwise.

Yeah. This is a huge problem I’m foreseeing.

The population that wants to play healers has probably settled on Guardian or Elementalist, not Ranger. If Arenanet wanted to allow dedicated healers to exist (as they seem to be doing) they should have focused on making Guardian and Elementalist very potent healers before giving top heals to a class that nobody ever rolled to heal.

The same goes with tanks. Let Warrior and Guardian tanks be a thing before Engineers, Thieves or Necromancer, since that’s where you’ll find the players who are most likely to want that kind of role.

In the mean time, Revenant are the new guys in a GW2 that allows tanks and healers so they get the choice to be excellent tanks and excellent healers.

This is going to be a problem.

Druid is just giving Ranger a support roll… elite specs are giving other classes more flexibility. The fact that they are not increasing group buffs to 10 indicates that classes considered “selfish” won’t be shunned and may even be needed for tanking or aggro pulling. Stacking is gone.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

Druid is just giving Ranger a support roll… elite specs are giving other classes more flexibility. The fact that they are not increasing group buffs to 10 indicates that classes considered “selfish” won’t be shunned and may even be needed for tanking or aggro pulling. Stacking is gone.

How do that indicate that they wont be shunned or needed?… people will want 2 of each buffer instead.

Test.8734:

Paulash.5814:

My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account.

How many players who currently have a level 80 ranger on their account have created that character to play as a dedicated healer?

Zero.

False i have lvl 80 ranger specific to healing/support please dont speak for everyone if you don’t know everyone

Thank you

Nike.2631:

I think people are sorely underestimating how much healing many core professions can throw down right now. It’s not that the builds don’t exist, its that there’s ZERO need for them. Create a demand and those builds will come out of mothballs right quick.

Even now I’d take a prepared Elementalist over Druid because you KNOW there’s gonna be phases where the heal pressure backs off and you need MAXIMUM BURN. Ele swaps attunement and lays it on. Druid… relaxes a little?

This.

cant the druid just swap to sword or longbow

celestial druid can be a thing like celestial ele is

just because you are druid spec doesnt mean you can’t do damage

Paulash.5814:

Alright, I’ve been seeing this comment come up a lot when concerning the Druid. People have a fit thinking that they will have to wait hours for a Druid on lfg. My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account. If we are assuming raids are truly difficult content, then I believe it is safe to assume that many of the players interested in the content will have an 80 for every profession. If your group needs a Druid, someone can simply switch.

The last thing you want on a raid is some bear-bowing pug trying to heal you.

Gav.1425:

Paulash.5814:

Alright, I’ve been seeing this comment come up a lot when concerning the Druid. People have a fit thinking that they will have to wait hours for a Druid on lfg. My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account. If we are assuming raids are truly difficult content, then I believe it is safe to assume that many of the players interested in the content will have an 80 for every profession. If your group needs a Druid, someone can simply switch.

The last thing you want on a raid is some bear-bowing pug trying to heal you.

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

You guys are making it sound like only druids can heal…

Have a look at ventari, Ele, Guard, Mesmer.

I doubt druids will be needed only just for heals. I don’t see why druids should not run spotter, frost spirit and maybe also glyph of empowerment, while they still keep insane healing and support abilities.

Just because the elite spec is all about heals, it doesn’t mean that thats the only thing druids can do…

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

The druid just seems so hastily slapped together. Like they scraped the old one and replaced it with this. I am now wondering though what the old kit was like.

Gav.1425:

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

I assume that you do not make raids with pugs, so your ranger is at least a guild member. If you do not know him personally because the guild is big, someone in the 10 man group probably will and can explain why this and that has to be fitted on a friend to friend conversation. Of course this will take time, but you already waited for so long until all the 10 desired people showed up, why not the 5 minutes it takes to refit the ranger?

Of course he won´t be brilliant and the gear will be suboptimal, and this is where the complains are really coming about. Whether it concerns the zerk meta or trinity, everything below the absolut best is not an option for the vocal raid and/or zerk faction. The funny thing about this is that most zerkers/raiders probably brutaly suck at GW2 in most parts, like in the good old times where people where struck down in droves by the Dwayna statue or the Priest of Grenth and his merry men in attempts to zerg them down, when they are not in their respective comfort zones and do not even know or acknowlege it.

Torolan.5816:

everything below the absolut best is not an option

Haha I know right?

Is it not the absolute best? Then it’s useless.
Does this weapon deal a bit less damage? Then it’s junk.
Does this trait have utility instead of damage? Then it’s worthless.
Do you get hit by a single avoidable attack? Then you’re a scrub.
Running any other build/stat than damage? Then you’re bad and need training wheels.

Don’t forget that no one ever accepts ranger or necromancers never ever ever and everyone does 17 dungeons per hour at maximum efficiency robot speed.

Even better, if you’re not playing at maximum efficiency then you’re with ‘the play-how-you-want crowd’, which means you have either low skill, zero understanding of how the game works or just have resigned to mediocrity in every aspect of your life.

The sky is always falling. Up, down, left, right. No matter which way you look, it always falls.

/sarcasm

I think the issue is that in a game that has been out for a good while the optimum becomes the benchmark. The best players want to play the most difficult content and they are the ones who figure out which professions are the best tanks, which professions are the best CC, and which professions are the best healers. Those professions then become the de facto “group”.

You also have a group of players(myself included)a little disgruntled that Rangers didn’t receive a pet AI fix that should have happened years ago. Those same players could also be a little miffed that Rangers didn’t get the ability to stow pets permanently. That should have been a top priority in the design of the Ranger Elite Spec. Players that don’t feel that way could have just, you know, ignored stowing their pets. A lot of players for a very long time have been asking for a stow pet option and also more options for more control over their pets which ArenaNet said “they didn’t want to make the profession too complicated for new players”. So now we have difficult content in the form of Raids that wouldn’t be for new players and yet we don’t get more fidelity for control over our pets? I’m at a loss for why.

I love that Rangers are getting a really viable support option. They do decent damage. They have nice CC options. Now they have a viable support option. It’s a well-rounded profession. Te issue for me personally is that very few of the core player concerns for this profession have been addressed. Greater pet control, better pet AI, and the ability to stow pets permanently have all gone completely ignored.

The very first Elite Spec for Rangers was a great opportunity to take into account the pages upon pages of player feedback for Rangers and should have at least addressed one of the core issues players have with the profession and didn’t do that and it’s disappointing. That’s why I think there is a bit of disappointment with what is really actually looking like a fun Elite Spec to play despite player’s requests being ignored.

You are not gonna wait around for druid its the second most played class
but everyone tell them to re roll guardian because it sucks but there will be
plenty of healers if it turns out to be meta which you don’t know.

Extreme.8350:

You are not gonna wait around for druid its the second most played class
but everyone tell them to re roll guardian because it sucks but there will be
plenty of healers if it turns out to be meta which you don’t know.

But all those healer suck hard because they run around with bears, no matter
that maybe cats will die in 2 seconds at raids anyway .. but better a dead cat
than a bear

Oh .. and btw. @Iason Evan.3806 : there you have your “stow pet” function .. just let it die ^^

Beldin.5498:

Extreme.8350:

You are not gonna wait around for druid its the second most played class
but everyone tell them to re roll guardian because it sucks but there will be
plenty of healers if it turns out to be meta which you don’t know.

But all those healer suck hard because they run around with bears, no matter
that maybe cats will die in 2 seconds at raids anyway .. but better a dead cat
than a bear

Oh .. and btw. @Iason Evan.3806 : there you have your “stow pet” function .. just let it die ^^

:)

Scenario 1:

As I see it if they want to go with having dedicated healers then ALL classes need the ability to spec into it on the fly. Changing armor, trinkets and traits aside if they are going to be needed then they need to open the playing field to all.

As a necro main I am generally not looked upon favorably for groups anyways, what would be the harm in making our vampiric abilities MUCH more potent to our teammates to compensate? The other classes could/should be given a balance patch too, so as to make every class viable as a healer IMO. Eles, guards and now druids will need the least or no work but other classes such as necro (do we even have a place?), warriors, thieves etc will need a more thorough going over in order to compensate.

Scenario 2: It doesn’t matter and life goes on as usual with only those that want to be healers playing them.

Scenario 3: remains to be seen as we don’t know at this point what ANet has planned for the game.

edit: clarity

Bearhugger.4326:

Test.8734:

Paulash.5814:

My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account.

How many players who currently have a level 80 ranger on their account have created that character to play as a dedicated healer?

Zero.

What makes you think that people who made a character to NOT play as a dedicated healer will be willing to just turn around and play as a dedicated healer?

If anything, the situation will likely become worse than it’s right now for rangers. Instead of being not very sought but being begrudgingly accepted in groups (unlike necromancers, who are simply not accepted), rangers will only be accepted if they agree to use a healing build, and will be kicked otherwise.

Yeah. This is a huge problem I’m foreseeing.

The population that wants to play healers has probably settled on Guardian or Elementalist, not Ranger. If Arenanet wanted to allow dedicated healers to exist (as they seem to be doing) they should have focused on making Guardian and Elementalist very potent healers before giving top heals to a class that nobody ever rolled to heal.

The same goes with tanks. Let Warrior and Guardian tanks be a thing before Engineers, Thieves or Necromancer, since that’s where you’ll find the players who are most likely to want that kind of role.

In the mean time, Revenant are the new guys in a GW2 that allows tanks and healers so they get the choice to be excellent tanks and excellent healers.

This is going to be a problem.

Even if they did somehow swap which professions are forced into the heal-kitten role…I didn’t roll my guardian to be a heal-kitten either. I felt pretty safe picking any profession I wanted to, gasp, play it how I wanted! Changing which profession to force into a healing role isn’t a fix for this either. This is just a bad move on ANET’s part. Yet another poorly thought out change…one that they have been hiding and denying up until this point where they think they have enough pre-order sales to minimize the back lash.

Shoe.5821:

cant the druid just swap to sword or longbow

celestial druid can be a thing like celestial ele is

just because you are druid spec doesnt mean you can’t do damage

Imagine a profession that can pump out that much healing…also being able to pump out any level of damage that actually matters. You think that would not be headed for an immediate nerf? If the ability to heal a raid for this allegedly intense amount of unavoidable damage is any level of challenge…then one can only assume the best healing gear will be required…meaning not celestial, but nomad or clerics. If that’s the case, druid damage will be abysmal no matter what weapon you swap to. If that’s the case, you better be on your “A” game with the healing (meaning in your actual top notch healing gear) or the boot is coming. Raids are what this is all about, and they are supposed to be “challenging group content”. Apparently ANET decided to make the entire challenge about brute force healing…

Sylent.3165:

Scenario 1 – raids are truly difficult, a dedicated healer is needed. That would be a druid. So if that’s the case every one will need a druid, raids will be sitting in lfg needing a druid. Thus creating the issue anet stated this game would never have of needing a dedicated healer or tank to do things thus no queues.

There are support/heal builds on other professions. Mesmer can pump out a high stream of big healing and Elementalist can push out lots of condi cleanse + water fields and Tempest offers other options if you want to specialize in healing. Warrior can push out lots of healing actively and passively. There’s also the need for boons and defensive conditions for support. Professions like Thief and Necromancer have their own means of support as well as pushing out lots of blind and weakness.

Sylent.3165:

Scenario 2 – druid isn’t needed. A full dps team or team with minimal valkyrie or knights armor can still beat the raids making druid 100% useless and simply not needed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Build-MAD-SEED-DRUID-a-selfish-druid/first#post5536104

They already said that we can finish raid with any party composition so no reason to zake some zdps class

Gav.1425:

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

Shall I use the advice spouted to those dirty PUG play-how-you-want players?

Try joining a guild for your group content ^^

but that is a valid concern – druid is either obsolete or necessary…in case of the second, i dont follow the strategy of breaking up the meta by creating an ever stronger one

Nemesis.6938:

but that is a valid concern – druid is either obsolete or necessary…in case of the second, i dont follow the strategy of breaking up the meta by creating an ever stronger one

Why would it be necessary?

Ventari can heal as well. Guard can heal and provide buffs such as group stab and protect. mesmer can heal. Ele can heal…

Druid is not the only healer in game. It just has 1 spec focusing on it.

I sure wish there was more than just raids in this game, just imagine if there were pvp, wvw, dungeons, events, and many other things we could potentially do. I bet Druids would surely be useful somewhere if this were the case, its to bad that there are only raids in this game.

… Wow, there is a lot of emotions and view points in this post…

I’m just going to go with “I’ll wait and see what the raids are like first before making demands”.

I have 11 lvl 80s fully equipped in Exotics or better. One of each class, plus an extra Ranger, Guardian, and Elementalist. I’ll have a 12th, the Revenant, once HoT releases.

The classes that I have multiple of, I am planning on giving a dedicated non-dps role to. The extra Guardian is built very tanky, the Elementalist is for heals, and the extra Ranger for now was just because I wanted to make another for looks and for lol-range dps, but that will turn into a Druid (and unknown to me, his looks will fit right in!).

So, safe to say I’m sure there are others out there in my situation who will have some heals on hand if need be.

Leo G.4501:

Gav.1425:

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

Shall I use the advice spouted to those dirty PUG play-how-you-want players?

Try joining a guild for your group content ^^

How does that statement even apply to this situation? What makes you think players in a guild are any better than random pugs? How does being in a guild change either the need for, effectiveness of, or desirability of a particular profession/specialiation?

ODB.6891:

Leo G.4501:

Gav.1425:

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

Shall I use the advice spouted to those dirty PUG play-how-you-want players?

Try joining a guild for your group content ^^

How does that statement even apply to this situation? What makes you think players in a guild are any better than random pugs? How does being in a guild change either the need for, effectiveness of, or desirability of a particular profession/specialiation?

Because part of being in a guild is being a team player. If you’re not, then you’re not going to be in the guild very long. It’s about getting to know people and figuring out the best way to run content. If people pug, they couldn’t care less most of the time how they treat others.

3rd Scenario – Every profession can already do some form of support, control, and damage, and even druid still has damage and control options. So people will play what they want to play, but a more balanced team will have a much easier time than a team made of glass.

There is no such thing as a dedicated healer in this game; even a druid will be expected to put out damage and do some control in addition to support. If healing becomes truly important, then we have nearly every other profession that can provide some form of group healing as well to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Scenario 3 – you have all class do you dont care

I can pretty well guarantee that dedicated healers will not be necessary for raids. Group healing may be, but dedicated healers will not.

Group healing is something that can be spread over the entire party. For example, a Guardian could run Healing Breeze instead of Shelter or Litany of Wrath in order to help the party survive. Necros could trait into Blood Magic for Transfusion instead of Curses or Soul Reaping. Thieves might even break out venom share with skelk venom!

There is also the possibility of using sets with Healing Power as a secondary stat like Zealot’s. Two Zealot’s geared party members could probably replace a Cleric’s geared and a Zerker’s geared in raid content.

Or you could centralize the healing duties onto one or two people, letting the others trait/build for more DPS and control.

Since all professions are capable of contributing to the healing effort, the need of an actual dedicated healer is really nonexistant. It’s a viable option, but not a hard requirement.

ODB.6891:

Bearhugger.4326:

Test.8734:

Paulash.5814:

My only response to this is that many players have level 80 Rangers on their account.

How many players who currently have a level 80 ranger on their account have created that character to play as a dedicated healer?

Zero.

What makes you think that people who made a character to NOT play as a dedicated healer will be willing to just turn around and play as a dedicated healer?

If anything, the situation will likely become worse than it’s right now for rangers. Instead of being not very sought but being begrudgingly accepted in groups (unlike necromancers, who are simply not accepted), rangers will only be accepted if they agree to use a healing build, and will be kicked otherwise.

Yeah. This is a huge problem I’m foreseeing.

The population that wants to play healers has probably settled on Guardian or Elementalist, not Ranger. If Arenanet wanted to allow dedicated healers to exist (as they seem to be doing) they should have focused on making Guardian and Elementalist very potent healers before giving top heals to a class that nobody ever rolled to heal.

The same goes with tanks. Let Warrior and Guardian tanks be a thing before Engineers, Thieves or Necromancer, since that’s where you’ll find the players who are most likely to want that kind of role.

In the mean time, Revenant are the new guys in a GW2 that allows tanks and healers so they get the choice to be excellent tanks and excellent healers.

This is going to be a problem.

Even if they did somehow swap which professions are forced into the heal-kitten role…I didn’t roll my guardian to be a heal-kitten either. I felt pretty safe picking any profession I wanted to, gasp, play it how I wanted! Changing which profession to force into a healing role isn’t a fix for this either. This is just a bad move on ANET’s part. Yet another poorly thought out change…one that they have been hiding and denying up until this point where they think they have enough pre-order sales to minimize the back lash.

Except giving a profession the option to be a healer, is not the same as being forced to be the healer. You’re the one that chooses which playstyle you want to play, don’t want to be a healer, then don’t. Having the option to do so, does not change anything other than give people who do enjoy that playstyle the option to also “play how they want”.

Also they have always been vocal about the fact that they want every profession to be able to fill every role, not just damage, so not quite sure where they supposedly hid and denied that ^^

Hey, I just wanted to point out that if there is a raid or two, that does not require healing—and instead needs max dps, Rangers can continue to run Frost Spotter, but now get 2 high damage pets to bring along, opposed to one. No harm no foul.

The biggest threat to pug speed is actually not the Ranger. It usually comes down to Eles, guardians, and warriors doing a kitten poor job at keeping team might at 25%. It’s like they don’t know what to do with a fire field, half the time.

Last point. The auto attack, on staff 1, was hitting pretty hard in the videos. Looks a lot like mesmer GS skill 1. Why can’t Druid run full berserker with sigils of Life or benevolence, and Rune of the monk? I think that would do the trick for a DPS monk.

The problem with your first assumption is you forget that other players can spec as dedicated healers. There are guardians that can spec for so much healing they can facetank mossman in a lvl 50 fractal, and eles that can burst heal like 20k in a second, among others (yes, all 8 classes dont have good healing specs, but more than 1 of them does)

Your second scenario could be valid, but it doesnt seem likely as it was already stated that raids will require more than pure dps specs and will have undodgeable damage. But it could happen.

Sylent.3165:

Scenario 1 – raids are truly difficult, a dedicated healer is needed. That would be a druid. So if that’s the case every one will need a druid, raids will be sitting in lfg needing a druid. Thus creating the issue anet stated this game would never have of needing a dedicated healer or tank to do things thus no queues.

Scenario 2 – druid isn’t needed. A full dps team or team with minimal valkyrie or knights armor can still beat the raids making druid 100% useless and simply not needed.

Is there a scenario 3 I’m missing? I just see this game slowly trying to turn into an mmo that’s been dying over the years and using the old mechanics of old mmos. I feel like guild wars 2 doesn’t want to be guild wars 2 anymore.

Scenario 3: A party with a druid means other party members need to worry less about dying. The rest of the party switches out survibility utility skills for offensive utility skills. People get downed less while proving more DPS which means they contribute more, and the raid is more manageable. Without the druid, the party adapts by changing their skillset and/or traits for more survibility.

Ergo: Raids are difficult. A druid is helpful, but isn’t absolutely required.

Ausfer.1853:

Sylent.3165:

Scenario 1 – raids are truly difficult, a dedicated healer is needed. That would be a druid. So if that’s the case every one will need a druid, raids will be sitting in lfg needing a druid. Thus creating the issue anet stated this game would never have of needing a dedicated healer or tank to do things thus no queues.

Scenario 2 – druid isn’t needed. A full dps team or team with minimal valkyrie or knights armor can still beat the raids making druid 100% useless and simply not needed.

Is there a scenario 3 I’m missing? I just see this game slowly trying to turn into an mmo that’s been dying over the years and using the old mechanics of old mmos. I feel like guild wars 2 doesn’t want to be guild wars 2 anymore.

Scenario 3: A party with a druid means other party members need to worry less about dying. The rest of the party switches out survibility utility skills for offensive utility skills. People get downed less while proving more DPS which means they contribute more, and the raid is more manageable. Without the druid, the party adapts by changing their skillset and/or traits for more survibility.

Ergo: Raids are difficult. A druid is helpful, but isn’t absolutely required.

This is how I see it going as well. A druid makes the raid comp more secure. Allowing players to take more risk becuase theres a lifeline. The skill of a druid is going to be decided on just how far foward his team can lean over the cliff while the druid is holding onto there arm.

In a five man scenario it might not mean much.. That forward lean probably wont equal enough dps to make up for the loss of a PURE dpser so the druids in groups will most likely be hybrid dps/support characters. But in raids. If you can cause nine people to safely be able to do 9-10% more damage without fear of death. You have not only made up for your lessened (not zero) dps . But ADDED more in the overall fight through that. If raids are even a tenth as difficult as they should be. Youl either be taking multiple defensive cooldowns to save yourself. Or youl be taking offensive cooldowns and leaving the defense to the support/control players.

ODB.6891:

Leo G.4501:

Gav.1425:

Torolan.5816:

That´s what I love most about this forum, people always assume the worst to happen and are never satisfied with a viable solution that is not the most efficient.

How hard can it be to tell on TS that the ranger should not use the 4 on longbow, put his tanky bear pet away for some other, totally irrelevant pet and put some healing gear on?^^

It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.

Pushing trinity forces an even more strict meta.

Shall I use the advice spouted to those dirty PUG play-how-you-want players?

Try joining a guild for your group content ^^

How does that statement even apply to this situation? What makes you think players in a guild are any better than random pugs? How does being in a guild change either the need for, effectiveness of, or desirability of a particular profession/specialiation?

The point I was replying to was “It’s hard enough to get a pug ranger to run spotter, let alone swap his entire build, gear, and playstyle for you.” If you guys are in a guild, you’ve got a pool of people with a more focused goal and expectations and if the Ranger doesn’t want to do what the group wants, likely they will drop him and invite another guild member who will listen.

And this is coming from a player who tends to stay away from guilds and mostly PuG. If you have to have a druid healer and not a guardian healer or revenant healer or elementalist healer then you need to be in a guild to make finding what you “need” much simpler. In a PuG group, it’s more likely than not you will either be forced to use whatever or you’ll stupidly be waiting when you don’t really need to.

Nothing in what I read in this thread, disputed the OP in a way I would find plausible – based on what I read on druid spec. It seems clear that everything about druid elite is about healing. Staff skills, glyphs, profession mechanic, even specialisations – it’s all geared on healing. Weapon swap isn’t going to swap your specialisations, or your utility skills, or your profession mechanic.

Yes, you have an option to do ‘hybrid’ of some kind, by simply not using the glyphs. But then what’s the point of the elite spec? You have a full spec tree dedicated for healing, which will be basically wasted unless that’s what you focus on.

The way I see it this leads back to OP. Nothing in the current game content requires that much healing. And if that much healing isn’t needed then it’s not wanted in groups either – because it means one group member is contributing next to nothing to DPS. Taking in a druid to the group means that -everyone else- will have to alter their build and approach, and that’s not going to happen. Not to mention you can clear almost anything with a group that maximizes DPS anyway (and sometimes that’s not just possible, but pretty much required).. in which case giving up a DPS ‘slot’ for healer is simply a straight out loss.

Even -if- some of the new content required more healing power, that would still make it useless elite in more than 99% of scenarios. And having your elite spec dedicated to some almost non-existent content like that doesn’t sound very tempting.

On top of that, in all honestly the elite sounded boring. Ranger already feels like too simplistic profession, and I was kind of hoping this elite would bring something more complex on table, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen.

There might be one slight saving grace in this. Part of ranger’s damage comes from the pet, and going to druid spec shouldn’t affect that overly much. So even if your own DPS goes to toilet, it doesn’t affect you quite as absolutely as it might another profession.

Kitsune.1902:

Nothing in what I read in this thread, disputed the OP in a way I would find plausible – based on what I read on druid spec. It seems clear that everything about druid elite is about healing. Staff skills, glyphs, profession mechanic, even specialisations – it’s all geared on healing. Weapon swap isn’t going to swap your specialisations, or your utility skills, or your profession mechanic.

Yeah, because you can’t swap your utility skills or specializations in an instance…

Kitsune.1902:

Yes, you have an option to do ‘hybrid’ of some kind, by simply not using the glyphs. But then what’s the point of the elite spec? You have a full spec tree dedicated for healing, which will be basically wasted unless that’s what you focus on.

Explain how a build isn’t a hybrid unless you completely ignore that you can take 2 other spec lines and you have the option swap in whatever utilities you want, use whatever gear types you want or what weapon skills you want to use.

And the spec line does have traits that do more than heal. There is soft and hard CC in the tree. Are you intentionally ignoring that?

Kitsune.1902:

The way I see it this leads back to OP. Nothing in the current game content requires that much healing. And if that much healing isn’t needed then it’s not wanted in groups either – because it means one group member is contributing next to nothing to DPS. Taking in a druid to the group means that -everyone else- will have to alter their build and approach, and that’s not going to happen. Not to mention you can clear almost anything with a group that maximizes DPS anyway (and sometimes that’s not just possible, but pretty much required).. in which case giving up a DPS ‘slot’ for healer is simply a straight out loss.

Even -if- some of the new content required more healing power, that would still make it useless elite in more than 99% of scenarios. And having your elite spec dedicated to some almost non-existent content like that doesn’t sound very tempting.

On top of that, in all honestly the elite sounded boring. Ranger already feels like too simplistic profession, and I was kind of hoping this elite would bring something more complex on table, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen.

There might be one slight saving grace in this. Part of ranger’s damage comes from the pet, and going to druid spec shouldn’t affect that overly much. So even if your own DPS goes to toilet, it doesn’t affect you quite as absolutely as it might another profession.

You should preface your argument with PvP, WvW or PvE. Obviously you’re talking from a PvE point of view and I’d agree with you about most content not needed a lot of healing but that still doesn’t invalidate the other portions of the game that may benefit from a specific specialization.

However, I can’t agree with you because your speculation is far too close-minded. You’ve obviously jumped on the “It’s a healer ONLY” bandwagon and forewent any other possible combinations of skills resulting in new approaches for the Ranger. I mean, you do realize much of the complaints about Ranger in groups was their lack of group support, yes? Not only does the spec offer a good amount of possible healing but also the amount of CC (dazes and immobilize) can offer lots of added benefit for your group and your pet.

Posters like yourself, I can almost certainly read exactly your viewpoint like an open book: The Ranger didn’t get a perma-stow pet or non-pet spec option thus it already was a strike-out for you. It’d be a lot easier if you help the entire forum out if you just admit this first and cease all this “omg healz, DOOM” nonsense.